These advanced steps are primarily for system administrators and others who are familiar with the command line. You don't need a bootable installer to upgrade macOS or reinstall macOS, but it can be useful when you want to install on multiple computers without downloading the installer each time.
Find the appropriate download link in the upgrade instructions for each macOS version:
DiskMaker X (formerly Lion DiskMaker) is an application built with AppleScript that you can use with many versions of OS X/macOS to build a bootable drive from OS X/macOS installer program (the one you download from the App Store). As soon as you launch the application, it tries to find the OS X Install program with Spotlight. First, let us look at how to create a bootable drive using Terminal. Steps to create a macOS Siera beta boot disk: The first step in the process is to connect your external hard drive to your Mac. You need to name your external drive ‘untitled’ for the Terminal command to work. Launch Terminal. Mar 12, 2020 A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the Internet, but it does require the Internet to get information specific to your Mac model, such as firmware updates. If you need to connect to a Wi-Fi network, use the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar. Set it aside, calm down and download a bootable data recovery app using any other computer. Disk Drill is by far the most convenient and up-to-date macOS bootable file rescue solution. It'll make your Mac boot from USB in just a few clicks. Starting with Disk Drill 3, anyone can create a bootable Mac OS X drive in a matter of minutes.
macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, ormacOS High Sierra
Installers for each of these macOS versions download directly to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS Catalina, Install macOS Mojave, or Install macOS High Sierra. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. Important: To get the correct installer, download from a Mac that is using macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or later, or El Capitan 10.11.6. Enterprise administrators, please download from Apple, not a locally hosted software-update server.
OS X El Capitan
El Capitan downloads as a disk image. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.
MyVolume
in these commands with the name of your volume.Y
to confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal shows the progress as the bootable installer is created. * If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the --applicationpath
argument, similar to the way this argument is used in the command for El Capitan.
After creating the bootable installer, follow these steps to use it:
For more information about the createinstallmedia
command and the arguments that you can use with it, make sure that the macOS installer is in your Applications folder, then enter this path in Terminal:
Catalina:
Mojave:
High Sierra:
El Capitan: